Custom Web Site Design, Development and Consulting in Massachusetts.

Projects Tagged ‘responsive’

Boston Partners is an investment organization with $78 billion of assets under management. The design of their old website had become dated and it was somewhat confusing to navigate. The client wanted to upgrade the look and feel; they also needed to add key product information frequently sought by clients and staff.

First steps (as always) were to identify the audience for the site, their devices, and use scenarios. What information did they need to access and how could we get it to them faster and more easily? This step took some time to work through as the firm has a wide variety of investment capabilities and publishes many different kinds of documents for each product. The client provided excellent guidance on what was needed and together we worked out a solution.

For product literature we finalized two pages, one for Mutual Funds and one for Separate Accounts which would provide all the relevant documents in an easy-to-understand layout (which resizes automatically for different sized devices).

The document files are regularly updated so I built a custom section on the backend where the client could add/edit/delete products and easily upload or remove files for each one. Requiring only one page visit in the back end this is much easier and more accurate than uploading files to the media library and copying each url over into a post.

We also separated the core product offerings out in the "Investment Capabilities" section, providing each one with a landing page containing information on the investment approach, products, assets under management, team members and experience.

As well as product information, Boston Partners regularly publishes white papers, press releases, commentaries, Q&As and is often featured in the press. We organized these items into two sections, "News" and "Insights" and set up a taxonomy system where the client-side publisher can check a box from the predefined categories and have the post appear in the correct section automatically. Similarly, visitors to the site can easy navigate to all posts in a specific category.

We migrated the site from my server to their in-house dev server and tested it thoroughly before pushing it live on their production server. The IT team at Boston Partners manages the site and all updates in-house and I check-in quarterly to answer any questions and address feature requests.

Custom Wordpress website for a craft brewery. A key requirement was a full-screen (on all devices) home page illustration with the global navigation in a bar across the bottom of the page. The client provided the illustration and I edited it to allow for vertical extension so that it would fill the screen for the aspect ratio of large monitors and portrait view tablets alike.

I built custom features for the backend (editor) so that the client can add events and also locations and have them display on the frontend (the website) showing specific information in a particular format. To add/edit/delete the client logs in to the Wordpress backend and edits the list in the events or locations section and saves. The results publish automatically on the website.

The client provided some excellent photography, of both the brewery and product shots. We used a parallax effect to show off the great imagery.

This is a one-page site and it includes an embedded, customized Google Map for directions/location.

Julia Campbell runs a consultancy that helps non-profits get the most out of their online efforts. Julia already had a Wordpress website but the look and feel did not reflect the quality of her services.

We selected a premium Wordpress theme that gave us most of the functionality we wanted, then set about customizing it to meet her requirements. The home page contains and links to brochure-like descriptions of her offerings and the blog section is updated frequently by Julia herself via the Wordpress editor.

Tractor Ted's DVDs are a wonderful series of real-life, educational films all about tractors, animals and farming. My children loved the DVDs and I am now working with the creators to distribute Tractor Ted DVDs and books in North America.

A new look for the Ipswich River Watershed Association. The team there was already using Wordpress with success so I designed and developed a new theme for them to update the presentation of key info, calls to action, their blogs and numerous pages of content.

This new theme is responsive which is standard operating procedure at GWD. It being responsive just means that the site adapts the layout and everything works regardless of whether you are on a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop.

Together we revamped the information architecture, organizing the information to make the site easier to navigate and use.

Another standard operating procedure here is to install best of breed plugins. There are thousands of plugins out there and many are buggy, bloated and unreliable. Every website I make benefits from top notch plugins for: security, backup, caching, forms, shortcodes, lossless image compression etc. Of these the most crucial plugins are for security and backup. There are many, many attacks on Wordpress sites these days (because of it's popularity) and you can't be too careful.

The main challenge on this project was integrating MLS listings into this real estate web site. We spent a lot of time upfront researching wordpress plugins and other solutions before selecting IDX Broker as a service. Using their premium wordpress plugin we were able to include basic and advanced MLS searches with lead generation, by-town and by-category live listings results pages and mapped listings as well as other features.

The website is responsive which should hopefully help house hunters touring the area and we've tried hard to optimize the content so that it will rank highly against the competition.

The clients are able to log in to the backend of the website and upload new listings, create image slideshows and edit pages and blog posts.

The primary goal of the National Protective Systems website is clearly communicate the general nature of their business. We hired an illustrator to produce custom icons as well as an infographic which is animated on the homepage. I customized a premium Wordpress theme from a trusted theme vendor, creating a custom presentation layer for the client based on a robust theme framework featuring many page layout options, shortcodes and other useful features. I selected plugins from my current "best-of" list of tried-and-true plugins for security, backup, usability, seo, analytics etc. The website has plenty of scope for expansion should the client choose to add more content. It is also, being a Wordpress website, one that the client can log into and edit/add/delete elements of by himself.

This responsive (resizes dynamically according to device screen size) Wordpress website is designed to show off the work of a financial PR company. The challenge was to present the work in a visually appealing and easy-to-navigate way and to control the presentation of pdf work examples.

One of the first Wordpress sites I built was for local marketing agency Communications Ink. I recently upgraded the Wordpress site with a new customized theme that is also responsive (resizes dynamically according to the device a viewer is using - desktop, tablet, mobile etc.).

The client can select work to feature on the homepage and categorize the work that is presented on the portfolio page. There's a nice ajaxed animation that filters the work by category on the portfolio page. The theme also includes blog styling, a slider, contact form and social media integration.

I built this web site for a family with a jointly owned beach house. Family members needed to be able to mark a calendar with their usage and be able to reference it 24/7.

Several years ago I built functional calendar using phpeventcalendar as a foundation and hacking it a bit to suit the client's specific needs.

In July 2012 I updated the code a bit, added a bunch of custom features and skinned it with the awesome Bootstrap from Twitter. It's responsive so adjusts to a list view if you access it on a small enough device screen.

I have a long list of features I'd like to add and I'd love to turn it into a Wordpress plugin as I spent years looking for something just like it and never found a solution beyond hacking together my own solution. One for the todo list.